Servant of the Bones

" 'Put them in the casket for me,' I said. 'What is this city? Where are we?'

" 'Babylon,' said Cyrus.

' 'And you are sending me to Miletus to a great wizard. I must know and remember his name.' He'll call you,' said Cyrus.

"I took one last look at them. I walked to the windows which were open to the river and I looked out and I thought, What a beautiful city this is, it is so filled with burning lights tonight, and so much laughter and merriment.

"Without raising my voice, I dissolved my form once more, raging at the souls as they surrounded me and plunged again into the velvet blackness, only this time I could smell the roses, and with the roses there came a memory, a memory of a procession, and people cheering and crying, and waving, and a handsome man singing with a beautiful voice, and petals tossed so high they showered down on us, on our shoulders . . . but the memory faded.

"I was not to remember these moments, these things, what I have told here for two thousand years."

Azriel sat back.

It was almost daylight.

He closed his eyes.

"You have to rest now, Jonathan," he said, "or you'll be sick again, and I must sleep, and I fear what will happen. But I'm tired, tired!"

"Where are the bones, Azriel?" I asked.

"That I'll tell you when we wake. I'll tell you everything that happened with Esther, with Gregory and the Temple of the Mind. I'll tell you . . ."

He seemed too weary to continue.

He stood up and then very firmly helped me up from the chair. "You must drink more broth, Jonathan."

He gave it to me, from a cup by the hearth, and I drank it, and then he helped me into the small bathroom of the cabin and politely he turned his back as I made water, and then he helped me to bed.

I was shaking badly. My throat was .thick, my tongue swollen.

I could see that he was in great anxiety. The telling of the tale had been an ordeal.

He must have read my sympathy. "I'll never tell it again to anyone else," he said. "I don't ever want to say it again, I don't ever want to see the boiling cauldron-" His voice dried up.

He shook his head and his thick hair to wake himself, and then he helped me into the bed. He made me drink more cool water, which was very good.

"Don't fear for me," I said. "I'm well. Only a little tired, a little weak." I took one last deep drink of water then offered the bottle to him and he drank more deeply. And he smiled.

"What can I do for you now?" I asked. "You're my guest and my protector."

"Would you let me sleep beside you?" he said. "As if we were just boys together in the field, so that . . . that... so that... if the whirlwind comes for me, so that if the souls come, I can reach out and touch your warm hand."

I nodded. He put me under the covers, and then he climbed in beside me. I turned towards him and he faced away. I put my arm over him. The red velvet robe he wore felt comfortable and thick and warm. I had my arm around him. He went limp, as it were, in the covers, his head deep into the pillow, the big mass of black curls close to my face, and smelling of the clean air outside and the sweet smoke from the fire.

The sunlight was just creeping under the door. And I could tell by its brightness and the warmth of the room that the snowstorm had slacked off. The fire was healthy. The morning was quiet.

I woke once at noon.

I was hot and mumbling and having a horrible dream. He lifted me up and gave me a big drink of cool water. He had put snow in it, and it tasted clean. I drank and drank, and then I lay back down.

He seemed to shimmer, a figure clad in red with deep black eyes. His beard and hair looked silky, and I thought of all the old texts that tell of ointments and oils and perfumes for hair; his hair was worthy of all that, I thought. There came back to me a panorama of the wall carvings I'd seen all over the world.

I saw the great Assyrian carvings in the British Museum. I saw the pictures in books. "The black-headed people," that was what the Sumerians had called themselves. And we had come from them, or somehow mingled in them, and I knew now that those strange carvings of bearded kings in robes were nearer to me than European emblems I'd cherished as familiar when in fact they mattered very little at all.

"You slept well?" I asked, but I was already drifting off. "Yes," he said. "You sleep now. I'm going out into the snow to walk. You sleep, you hear me? I'll have your supper for you when you wake."

9

In the very late afternoon I awoke. I could tell again by the light beneath the door that we must have a blue sky and a brightly dying sun.

He wasn't in the house, which was little more than one room. I got up, wrapping my heaviest robe around me, a cashmere robe, and then I looked for him-in the little rooms off the back, the bathroom, the pantry. He wasn't there. I remembered what he said about walking in the snow, but his absence unnerved me.

Then I stared down at the hearth, and I saw the large pot of broth filled with potatoes and carrots he'd put in it, and that meant I hadn't dreamt all this. Someone had come. I also felt very faintly sick. My head wasn't wondrously clear yet, the way it would feel when the illness was completely flown away.

I looked down at my feet. I had on thick wool socks with leather soles. He must have put these on me. I went to the door. I had to find him, find out where he was. I was in terror suddenly that he was gone. Utter terror.

I was in utter terror for a whole series of reasons, and I don't know what they were.

I put on my big boots, and my greatcoat, which is an enormous bulky garment, weighing a ton and made to cover the thickest sweaters, and then I opened the door.

The dying sun was still gleaming on the distant snow of the mountains, but otherwise the light was gone from the sky. The world was gray and white, metallic and growing dim.

I didn't see him anywhere. The air was still and tolerable as it can be in the worst winter, when for a moment there is no wind. Icicles hung from the roof above me. The snow showed no tracks. It looked fresh, and it wasn't impossibly deep.

"Azriel!" I called out to him. Why was I so desperate? Did I fear for him? I knew I did. I feared for him, for me, for my sanity, for my wits, for the security and peace of my entire life . . .

I shut the door, and walked out some distance from the house. The cold began to hurt my face and hands. This was plain stupid and I knew it. The fever would come back. I couldn't stay out here.

I called to him several times, and heard nothing. It was a beautiful snow-laden scene around me in the dusk. The firs wore their snow with dignity, and the evening stars were beginning to shine. The sun had gone. But it was twilight.